Advertising always seems to bring the hope out in marketers and clients. They set goals for their advertising to achieve and then hope, hope, hope that those goals are achieved.

Hope equates to risk. And advertising should always be about risk. Advertising is about sticking your neck out to see if everyone notices you. If they don’t notice it is not going to be effective advertising.

This counters most of our instincts about sticking out in a crowd. Human behavior is mostly directed at “fitting in” with the rest of the crowd. Who wants to wear a Hawaiian shirt and shorts to a formal dinner? We shudder at teh social faux pas. So we worry about social risks.

With advertising the conflict is about clients’ desire not to be too risky and at the same time making sure the advertising is intrusive and provocative.

Number one priority is making sure the argument is clearly presented for the viewer to understand. If it isn’t advertisers are relying on pure hope – no logic.

Advertising can err on losing the clarity of the message by being so provocative that the message gets overwhelmed and missed. Careful balancing act between hope and the real message.

Experienced creators of advertising programs realize and draw on their thousands of hours of experience and hundreds of commercial messages created to deliver this balance.

Psychologists reckon that one requires ten thousand hours to really be proficient at a complex skill like creating advertising. The delicate balance of attention and consolidating the strategy of the advertising proves that it is true. No one falls out of bed with this fully developed skill.

If that is so, why does the advertising industry crave – even go out of our way – to use inexperienced people to do our creative work? Is it based on that same hope?

I guess we believe that popular culture, of which advertising is a paid member in good standing, is renewed from the 20somethings who are the biggest users of music and video entertainment (that includes movies). But is that a valid assumption?

You certainly don’t have to be a product user to know how to sell a product. You have to be a master of the craft in putting together the message that provokes and appeals to the user.

Personally, I have worked on feminine hygiene products (biology won’t let me use them) and many other products and never used them. I have worked in a few languages I didn’t speak ro write. These things don’t matter so much as long as the argument in the strategy and the message are well crafted.

Based on that I would say that experience will trump hope when creating an effective message. Give me the master craftsman over the excited apprentice any day.